We stood up, and made the rope fast to a convenient ring in the parapet. Traffic in the street had ceased. The sentries were huddled in their coats, for it was a chilly summer night. Up street, a dog was yapping, and its voice seemed to stab the silence. Before stepping over the parapet I took a last look at the world I left and thanked God.
The waiting was over. In two seconds' time we should have gained freedom, or a slug from some sentry's rifle.
It took two seconds to slip down thirty feet of rope, and two seconds is a long time when your liberty, if not your life, is at stake. I half kicked down the sign-board of a shop in my descent, and Robin, who followed, completed the disaster. In our haste, we had cut our hands almost to the bone, and had made noise enough to wake the dead.
Yet no one stirred. We were both in the street, and no one had moved.
After two and a half years of captivity we were free men once more. The slothful years had vanished in the twinkling of an eye. Can you realise the miracle, liberty-loving reader, that passes in the mind of a man who thus suddenly realises his freedom? . . .
I don't know what Robin thought, for we said nothing. We lit cigarettes and strolled away. But inside of me, the motors of the nervous system raced.
The only other danger, in our hour and a half's walk to our destination, was being asked for passports by some policeman. In our character as polyglot mechanics, whenever we passed anyone, I found it a great relief to make some such remark as:
Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein, Fest steht and treu die Wacht am Rhein.
But Robin, who could not understand my German, paid little heed.
Only once we did think we were likely to be re-caught. At about one in the morning, as we were passing the Fatih mosque, we heard a rattle on the cobbles behind us. A carriage was being galloped in our direction. It might well contain some of the Psamattia garrison. We doubled into some ruins, and lay there, while the clatter grew louder and louder.